Osama Alaysa

As well as having published five novels, two collections of short stories and numerous essays, Osama Alaysa has worked for regional and national newspapers and conducted research for documentaries about Palestinian politics and culture. He was imprisoned a number of times in various Israeli prisons in the periods 1978–1982 and 1989–1991, as well as having been prevented from travel. The testimony he wrote for Banipal's 50th issue Prison Writing can be read online here.

Although Osama Alaysa sees his personal experience as insignificant in comparison to the suffering of many other Palestinians, he nonetheless perceives it as having had a profound impact upon his life, and this he reflects in many of his short stories and novels. His most recent novel is Majanin Bayt Lahm (The Mad Men of Bethlehem) (2013), which has won the 2015 Sheikh Zayed Book Award.